My Advice to Fellow Travelers: Learn How to Stay Still

Learning how to stay still, when you’re constantly lusting after wanderlust, feels impossible after taking off to see the world.

A body doesn’t have to be constantly in motion to experience new emotions and experiences. Your mind and spirit will feel a disconnect after the freedom that picking up and going at the drop of a hat gave you. However, you must realize that freedom is in the seemingly small and still stuff of life, too.

Alone Does NOT Mean Being Lonely

The beauty of traveling to new places is meeting other people and being up for chance happenings. Even when solo traveling, you are never truly alone. There are so many others doing the exact same thing, converging together in this rare and beautiful point and time, each with his or her own unique experience.

This beauty is also present when you are settled and still. Even if you feel the walls are closing in, you are not alone in the sense that you think. There is a quiet power in being in the presence of yourself, and it’s important to learn how to be comfortable with yourself when no one else is around.

So, nurture yourself and nurture your personal nest. It was bittersweet to display bits of my life from travelling on my walls at home, but slowly it came to me: I had a real home with four walls and the comfiest couch ever. This was a place all my own, and I slowly transformed it into my personal sanctuary.

Create a home space to settle in, unwind and reflect within, to hang your hat for longer than two nights. Do you, in all your weird and wacky glory. Recognize that in the moments you feel uncomfortable and lonely, you are getting to know yourself on a deeper level.

People like being around you — So, know you’re good company, silly! Spend time in your thoughts, and give consideration to them as you would to a friend. That was the hardest thing for me, feeling alone in the company of thought. I felt itchy and restless sitting by myself, stuck at home.

Yet, there is peace to being grounded and centered in your roots, to letting your rotating worlds and experiences awaken a point of soulful stillness and interconnectedness within. Wake up to the sunrise and make yourself a hearty breakfast. Take a walk as the sun is setting. Wondering is the new wandering.

Every Place, Even Local, is an Adventure

No one place has it all. I remember thinking my hometown was boring before I set off to answer the call of wanderlust. That bubble had to pop for me to appreciate my roots and really get to know my hometown for the first time, working through the ways I had and hadn’t grown.

Today, I can walk down the same route I always take and find something new about it. You think you’ve done and seen everything possible. Oh, darling, just you wait and see!

Find your personal village and its people where you settle. Everywhere you’ve ever traveled, you’ll have naturally gravitated to a favorite hangout. Expand your home base to neighborhood touchstones, a.k.a. the local coffee shop or farmer’s market, and get to know the many cultures that travel through this marketplace. Going to the coffee shop is akin to taking a pilgrimage to the temple of caffeine. It sounds like a metaphoric leap, but you will have these interesting epiphanies.

Honestly, people’s day to day routines are so interesting, and only people who’ve tried the strangest things at least once in various corners of the world really appreciate that. You may experience a reversed form of culture shock, as your sense of home and self will have changed. Yet, think of the relationships and the roots you’ll grow. Don’t fear losing yourself to a humdrum existence, because it’s not going to happen.

Staying still is not settling down and letting go of everything you’ve experienced or learned from your travels. You are not giving up your freedom. So, let those myths go, right now.

Surrender to yourself, to stillness and the clarity you will find within it. A deeper sense of yourself and your roots are waiting for you to let the beauty of staying still in.

Kacey Bradley

Lifestyle - Wedding - Travel

Welcome to The Drifter Collective - a lifestyle blog sharing my love for travel, style, wedding inspiration, homemaking and so much more!
Some people call me a traveler, while others refer to me as 'the well cultured friend" who drifts into everything. Pun intended. :)